“Pretty Little Liars” recap (3.05) – A Prayer for Paige McCullers

Previously on Pretty Little Liars, Emily got her drink on, and then her grave-rob on. Mona ascended to the right hand of God, and then descended on occasion to shine her glory upon the mortals at Radley Institute for the Criminally Insane. Caleb broke up with Hanna because she refused to stop getting run-under by cars. Aria still didn’t know what all the fuss was about with regards to this “A” person. And Nathan St. Germain strolled into town and tried to ruin everything we’ve worked so hard to build.

Emily, Hanna, and Spencer are on their way out for a midnight snack, but they barely make it off of Emily’s porch before they nauseate themselves to the point where they can’t even think about eating. They’re worried about Hanna, for starters, because she’s so torn out of the frame about Caleb dumping her she’s been wearing yoga pants without accessories for like a full week. Also, the “negatives” of that photo of them digging up Ali’s grave are floating around somewhere and who even knows when A is going to “fax” a copy of those things over to the “newspaper” and get the girls in even more trouble. While they’re working themselves into a tizzy and saying more words from the ’80s, an ambulance pulls up across the street and wheels off Garrett’s mom, who has, of course, been drugged into a coma by the hooded figure creeping around in the shadows.

Another beautiful morning in Rosewood Square. Aria has purchased a sackful of food for Ezra, which rubs him the wrong way real bad. He’s like, “Number one, I am not a homeless rodeo clown like Hanna’s boyfriend, OK? And number two, while I appreciate the gesture, your money is kind of your parents’ money at this point, which means these sandwiches are a gift from Byron Montgomery’s hand, and frankly, I’d rather f–king starve.” Lucas interrupts their squabble by … I don’t even know how to describe what he is doing right now. He’s kind of walking backwards and turning in circles with his arms out to his sides and running as fast as he can toward this photography studio and hurling his whole body at the window and shouting all the while about how he wants his shit back. My beagle ate one of my Adderall caplets over the weekend, and this is almost exactly what it looked like.

At school, Paige spies Emily in the courtyard. She averts her eyes and tries to sneak by, but this show never met some tweenage movie product placement it didn’t like — remember when Hanna was talking about The Justin Bieber Experience and she called him “The Biebs” — so Emily stops her to invite her to go watch Katy Perry shoot whipped cream from her nipples in 3D at the Rosewood multiplex. Paige is like, “I mean, I guess? It’s just that I’ve been under the impression you’re avoiding me because of how I was trying to make out with your face at the exact time your girlfriend was getting murdered a couple of months ago? And then a couple of months before that, I had tried to destroy my own personal internalized homophobia by choking you to death under water? I figured, you know, even though my hair is great now and our chemistry is ca-razy, maybe you weren’t into that whole ‘hot mess’ thing.” Emily smiles so sweetly and goes, “I have a bracelet made of human teeth in my purse, girl. Hot messes are kind of my thing.”

Jenna’s eyeballs are still alive and well, thank you very much, and she is showcasing them around the school building, just smizing it up and handing out birthday party invitations. Paige scurries by her and hollers, “Congratulations!!!!!!!” And then Emily and Jenna eye-f–k a little bit. You can tell me I’m an insane person, but that’s three times they’ve stared each other down now and almost caught their own pants on fire. It’s a thing that’s happening.

Hanna, looking fine indeed in a regular ol’ grey t-shirt, has decided not to go to school, but instead to stay home and listen to Bon Iver and cry herself to sleep. Ashley’s like, “Your choices are school or church, honey.” And Hanna goes, “Another idea I had is I’LL THROW MYSELF OUT MY WINDOW!”